Air NZ reverses decision to cut jobs

About 100 planned cabin crew redundancies have been reversed as domestic demand bounces back, says Air New Zealand chief executive Greg Foran.

The airline has already made 4000 workers redundant, and has said it expected its original workforce of 12,500 to halve.

Business travellers were slow to return to the skies, but the airline was increasing its domestic schedule to about 65 per cent of precoronavirus levels heading into the winter school holidays, Foran said in a message to staff yesterday.

There had been more bookings and more capacity available to Queenstown than the same time last year.

Destinations such as Nelson, Napier, Palmerston North and Tauranga were popular from Christchurch, he said.

‘‘It’s great to see our domestic schedule build again as Kiwis get out to explore their backyard.

‘‘It has meant we’ve been able to rescind the redundancy of over 100 of our cabin crew from the A320 or Turboprop fleets.’’

He said international air crew were ‘‘often unjustly the focus of people’s fear of another spike of Covid-19.

‘‘We have worked closely with the Ministry of Health and the measures we are taking are to keep our crew and the New Zealand public safe, but I know this doesn’t make it any easier.’’

The reduction of flying hours had hurt crew financially, and flying was now very different to what they were used to, he said. Air New Zealand has recently started requiring crew travelling to the United States to take a Covid-19 test before leaving 48 hours of self-isolation on their return to New Zealand.

Previously,Air New Zealand international crew did not have to self-isolate if they followed Ministry of Health rules. The ministry tightened up its requirements on June 16, when two new cases of coronavirus emerged.

Australian-based aviation research centre Capa – Centre for Aviation has forecast domestic air travel capacity in New Zealand will recover to just under 80 per cent of pre-Covid-19 levels by the end of the year.

Air New Zealand has restructured a large part of its business as it adapts to life as a much smaller airline.

‘‘It’s great to see our domestic schedule build again as Kiwis get out to explore their backyard.’’ Greg Foran

Air New Zealand chief executive